The Alien's Revenge - Ella Maven Page 0,28

my mind dulled and quivered. I whirled around, the qua splashing around my chest to find my beautiful mate with wetness coursing down her cheeks.

I gripped her face, terrified she was sick, just as she let out a low cry. I check her body for injuries, but she lightly gripped my hands and shook her head. As she nibbled her lip and looked down at her lap, it hit me. She was sad.

My arms flopped to my sides as I dipped lower into the water so I could peer up into her face. No, this wasn’t right. My beautiful cheerful mate who dined with blooms couldn’t be sad. Shouldn’t be sad. I’d known her mind had been crowded for a few rotations now, and I had brought her to the spring to make her happy. It hadn’t lasted long. If anything, she was sadder now than before.

I pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee, and she smiled at me as her wet eyes continued to leak. Her hand cupped my cheek, and I leaned into the touch because I liked it and I noticed she always did too.

But now, the action caused her to make that low cry again. I tried everything I could to make her happy, but maybe I wasn’t enough? Or maybe I wasn’t what she wanted at all. I’d tried to do everything in my power to please her—I’d hunted for her, given her safety and security. I’d pleasured her with my mouth daily.

Maybe that was what she wanted. I lowered my head to nuzzle between her legs, but she shook her head and gently pushed me away. Then she pointed toward the path behind us. “Hoam,” she said in her husky voice, which was the word I knew she’d given to my hut in the trees.

I pressed my lips to hers, and she allowed that, even as I delved my tongue inside her mouth to taste her. She moaned softly, and the wetness on her face touched my cheeks. When I drew back, I wiped her skin, and then mine. She smiled at me, and I wondered if there was something other than me that had upset her. But what else could it have been? There was only her and me. Us.

After dressing us both—I’d had to repair the shirt of hers I’d ripped—I led the way home, holding her hand as she remained silent behind me. Her thoughts were still chaotic, and they began to hurt my head.

Consumed by her dull bloom, and my own worries, I wasn’t paying attention like I should have been to the growing darkness of the forest. Luckily, I heard the crunch of leaves in enough time to duck, tucking my body around Merr-anda’s, just as a laser bullet pinged off a tree trunk over my head.

Merr-anda screamed, and I jerked to my feet, standing over her crouched form, just as a half-dozen large armored creatures emerged from the underbrush. The same species who’d hurt my mate.

“Kulks,” Merr-anda hissed from behind me.

The name knocked something loose in my head. I couldn’t remember who the Kulks were, but the word caused a hot flash of anger in my blood.

My lips pulled back into a snarl as I unleashed my machetes and claws. I pushed out all of the chaos, falling comfortably into the mindset of a warrior with a single-minded focus to protect me and mine. I knew they wanted Merr-anda, but they’d fail just like their fellow soldiers who’d tried to take her the first time.

I crossed my arms in front of my throat, an instinct I couldn’t remember learning, but my muscles nonetheless knew—an action as effortless as walking.

The sun had dipped below the horizon, and their solar guns would be useless soon without the ability to charge. Plus, their weapons were slow compared to the ones I had strapped at my lower back. One Kulk fired at me, and I dodged quickly before flinging a blade, catching him right in the throat where his armor belied a weakness. He let out a garbled shout of surprise before falling and clutching his neck.

An image flashed at me—my hands covered in blood and I knew that blood was my own. But I shook it loose, because now was not the time to get lost in memories. Another Kulk aimed for me but I tossed a blade into the eye-slits of his armor before rushing forward and finishing him off with a slice of my machets across his